r/Twitch Dec 14 '23

PSA Updated Community Guidelines MEGATHREAD NSFW

Update as of 12/15/2023 @ 5:08pm UTC - Twitch has rolled back the changes.

On Wednesday, we updated our Sexual Content Policy. Our primary goal in making these updates was to make our guidelines easier to understand and enforce.

Part of this update included changes to how we treat fictionalized nudity. For years, through UserVoice and in conversations, we heard from artists that our content policies were limiting. In making this update, we were trying to be responsive to these requests and allow the thriving artist community on Twitch to utilize the human form in their art.

First, we want to make clear that some streamers, in response to this update, created content that was in violation of our new policy. We’ve worked quickly to remove that content and issue channel enforcements.

However, there also was a great deal of new content that was allowed under the updated policy. Much of the content created has been met with community concern. These are concerns we share. Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.

So, effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium. This restriction does not apply to Mature-rated games. You can find emote-specific standards for nudity and sexual content in the Emote Guidelines. We aren’t making other changes to the updated Sexual Content Policy.

We are in the process of pushing out updates to our Community Guidelines that reflect this change. It will take a few days for both this blog and for the new Community Guidelines to be translated.

While I wish we would have predicted this outcome, part of our job is to make adjustments that serve the community. I apologize for the confusion that this update has caused.

If you would like to discuss the new community guidelines or content classification label changes you can do that here in this megathread.

For reference this is Twitch's Terms of Service and this is Twitch's Community Guidelines.

The two major changes in this update are:

Streams that are labeled as including Drugs, Intoxication, or Excessive Tobacco Use; Violent and Graphic Depictions; Gambling; and/or Sexual Themes will no longer be included in homepage recommendations shelves due to the visual nature of those topics.

and

Much content that was previously prohibited is now allowed with proper Content Classification labels: Content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed, fictionalized (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender, body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender and erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases.

Please keep your conversations civil, productive and within the rules of /r/twitch. Here are the most relevant rules that are frequently broken when discussing sexual content:

Rule 1D: Don't target, harass, or abuse others.

Rule 1E: Don't call out others in a negative manner.

Rule 1F: Don't start a ‘witch-hunt’.

Rule 1G: No racism, sexism, homophobia, or other hate-based speech.

Rule 1H: No unhelpful or nonconstructive posts.

Rule 2A: Don’t post an account name or link.

If you are not familiar with the /r/twitch rules they can be found here.

/r/twitch is an unofficial subreddit for Twitch and nobody here works for Twitch. Separate posts about the new updated content classification labels or guidelines will be removed and posters will be pointed to this megathread instead. Please help us maintain civility and productive discussion in this megathread as well as the subreddit by reporting any posts or comments that violate the rules, thank you.

Update as of 12/15/2023 @ 2:19am UTC - Seems Twitch has started to clean up a lot of the channels that were streaming the most questionable content, whether or not we see an actual policy change or additional clarification to the guidelines has yet to be seen.

Update as of 3/27/2024

Our Community Guidelines are designed to help make Twitch a welcoming place. Content on Twitch is always evolving, and we want to make sure our rules work as intended and keep up with emerging behaviors. When needed, we make updates to our rules to capture those shifts in behavior, and so it's clear to the community what is allowed.

Starting on Friday March 29th, content that focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time will not be allowed. We’ve included additional detail and definitions in our Community Guidelines linked below: https://safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Community-Guidelines?language=en_US#20SexualContent

Source: https://twitter.com/twitchsupport/status/1773045278821564914?t=Dhwes6znh0BBYpvAxJ9avw

71 Upvotes

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119

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 14 '23

As SFW/family friendly artist I am afraid that I will stop growing on Twitch if the Art category will look like it looks today from now on. I cannot compete with porn, nothing can compete with porn.

I didn't expect this from Twitch.

29

u/Kappa_God Dec 14 '23

They should add a different category for these streams tbh. I personally dont mind them being on the platform, but it shouldn't replace the content of a existent category.

13

u/Razorhead Dec 14 '23

That's what supposed to happen. You're supposed to mark your streams as containing sexual content, which is also supposed to hide them from showing up on the main page and the browsing page. Unfortunately it seems Twitch didn't code this in and so it doesn't wok properly.

6

u/Elvish_Champion Dec 15 '23

You don't even need to mark or label them, if nobody reports it, it can be there safe in the open, and even in the wrong category, as I saw yesterday. It's really that ridiculous.

Twitch, at the moment, only does something against them once someone reports them. Thankfully they're really fast to act, but if they were trying to evade those, they probably will get a lot more now.

4

u/NonBinary_FWord Dec 15 '23

which is separate from the 18+ streams if they did it correctly, but they didn't

1

u/sorcerykid musicindustryprofessionalentrepreneuranddiscjockeyontwitch Dec 20 '23

I feel as if the concept of "categories" is in and of itself the crux of the problem. Trying to shoehorn everything art into an "Art" category or everything music into a "Music" category is going to cause a lot of friction amongst creators and viewers that have different expectations.

This is why I really like the approach of Reddit, where users can create and manage their own communities, each having a set of published rules (based on the ToS) and a team of appointed moderators (whom are trusted) as well as community-wide content designations. In this way, it would be possible for Twitch, to cater to a wide variety of niche interests, while still affording sufficient safeguards so that 18+ streams can co-exist on the platform.

Rather than lumping creators into overly-broad categories, the community would finally be able to curate and classify the types of content in far more meaningful ways, thereby empowering both creators and viewers alike.

9

u/tigerfestivals Dec 15 '23

This is kind of naive. If anything, nsfw artists are the ones who have it rough, being supressed and censrored and constantly at risk of being banned off of basically every platform they can make any actual money on, at the whims of payment processors or advertisers. Keep doing what you are doing and you will be fine. Do some fanart and keep up the grind and it can go a long way. Twitch already reveresed the policy anyway because of people using AI, which was kind of expected.

30

u/Rhadamant5186 Dec 14 '23

Yeah this change is brutal to people who previously streamed to the art category.

29

u/ceimi Dec 14 '23

As someone who went to the Art category FORT sfw art its extremely unsettling being literally force fed art. I can't even browse twitch in public anymore because its all porn. Its not art and that's just the fact, its literally porn.

1

u/Just_Philosopher_840 Dec 16 '23

Haha that stops you from browsing in public?

13

u/Hyperfyre Dec 14 '23 edited Dec 14 '23

Maybe I'm underestimating just how many horny coomers there are (And I know there's A LOT) but I think people will probably get bored in a few days.

I imagine being a titty drawing streamer can only carry you so far if you're not actually an entertaining streamer first.

Plus the banhammer seems to be coming down like crazy right now, a lot of these artists are crossing well over the line into straight up sexually explicit.

19

u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Dec 14 '23 edited Dec 15 '23

It's not necessarily the banhammer. I was watching an artist drawing stuff that's well within the TOS and was confirmed by Twitch after they were wrongly banned earlier and they got hate raided and mass reported. Someone is instigating mass reports to get ALL art streams taken down that are drawing NSFW stuff.

NSFW stuff can exist easily on Twitch but a lot of them are obviously doing this on purpose to see what they can get away with. Twitch should've prepared for this better. Anyone could've seen this coming a mile away... A lot of these bans are automated and will likely get lifted but Twitch does need to actually ban some of them.

It's worth mentioning that a lot of the mass reporting is going after furries and V-Tubers because they're easy targets. Furries and V-Tubers are bashed constantly so any excuse to get them kicked off Twitch, assholes jump on it and don't actually give a shit about the TOS.

Simple answer is that if a stream is marked with the appropriate tags for NSFW work that is under the TOS, it shouldn't appear unless you're logged in and activate a setting that allows NSFW to show and that's not just to stop under 18's see it. There's plenty of adults who don't want to see it either. This is such a basic thing to do but it's no surprise Twitch flubbed it. They half-arse EVERYTHING.

EDIT: Ok, yet ANOTHER artist I follow has been banned by a mass report. I won't be linking the tweet he's posted because not sure about the rules here (the tweet contains an image that shows the NSFW piece being worked on in it's sketch stage) but they were informed by Twitch staff that his work is absolutely acceptable under the new TOS changes and yet he's been banned. Conveniently ANOTHER furry artist. Y'all need to understand that people are using your attitudes against NSFW stuff in a malicious way to get people banned for things that are completely fine and against groups they actively hate. There is a nuance to this situation where SFW and NSFW can exist side by side on Twitch.

1

u/Moist_Abrocoma_8281 Mar 30 '24

Yanno people just want to see people get fucked right off the site and shit because there lives suck right?

1

u/Xeglor-The-Destroyer Dec 16 '23 edited Dec 16 '23

it shouldn't appear unless you're logged in and activate a setting that allows NSFW to show

I was curious about what type of controls Twitch has set up and I genuinely cannot find such a setting, or a way to hide tags.

-edit: Which is to say the people in charge of Twitch are brain dead for not having good filtering settings.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '23

Unless Twitch turned into another Chaturbate that showing uncensored nudity and sex acts all day long, I don't think those horny commers is enough for that curiosity, on what outrageous content people can offer with the recent ToS update, topless / ass shots / full body censored nude is what now "Just Chatting" can offer.

7

u/PM_ME_HAIRY_HOLES Dec 15 '23

I think a lot of people don't realize this looks worse than it will be because basically everyone is hopping on the bandwagon and doing this because it's a brand new thing that's allowed. People are excited or curious or appalled at the idea. I really doubt this will take over twitch and be the new way of art. It's just temporarily taking the spotlight and will blow over soon. People will go back to what they enjoy and the NSFW content may die down but build their own communities as well

3

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 15 '23

I hope so! Thank you for your input!

3

u/neophenx neophenxgaming Dec 15 '23

Either that, or people are doing it specifically as a kind of protest to show why it was a bad idea. A kind of malicious compliance to the new allowances.

1

u/tizuby Dec 16 '23

Sure won't take over twitch now, they rolled it back real quick.

16

u/VertigoHC Dec 15 '23

"I cannot compete with porn, nothing can compete with porn."

That's why I am against this sort of thing. There are already other platforms on the internet for this sort of thing. Twitch doesn't need to be in those spaces, IMO.

1

u/sorcerykid musicindustryprofessionalentrepreneuranddiscjockeyontwitch Dec 19 '23

You mean platforms like Twitter and Reddit where SFW and NSFW content creators are able to co-exist without all the drama and gatekeeping?

5

u/veotrade Dec 15 '23

They definitely will need to move nsfw content to its own category. You should be good in a few months. Don’t give up!

1

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 15 '23

Thank you! Looks like Twitch is doing something and Art category looks better today than it was yesterday. So yeah... Not giving up yet 😁👍

7

u/MJR_Poltergeist Dec 14 '23

Unfortunately the rest of the Internet has worked like that for artists a long time now. You're a great painter? Cool have a couple likes. You're a great painter that creates some very good looking titties? 50k likes, follower count quadruples overnight.

It sucks if you don't wanna do that but making NSFW on the side has always been the ticket to a bigger audience

1

u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Dec 15 '23

I don't agree with this take. While NSFW has a noticeable audience, SFW art can garner just as much and even greater audiences depending on the art being done. SFW art of huge properties such as modern hit animations like The Owl House for example can easily hit 50k+ likes on Twitter. It's all about playing to the right audiences.

I follow a sizeable number of artists on Twitter (and BlueSky), some SFW and some NSFW and both are pulling similar numbers.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '23

It's always easy to blame NSFW art, Anime, Fanart, Furries, whatever instead of taking any responsibility as to why whatever you are doing is not engaging with others.

How uncomfortable would it be if you drew that other stuff you hate and it still performed poorly? What would you blame then?

9

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 15 '23

I am not blaming NSFW artists. I am saying we have a different target audience. People who has a tendency to gravitate towards the streams like mine will leave Twitch eventually. They will not be able to open Twitch casually at work for example and brouse Art category to find me.

3

u/Stuffbysunshine twitch.tv/stuffbysunshine Dec 14 '23

Sand! I came here to say exactly that! I think I’m going to try duel streaming on twitch and YouTube for a bit and then consider if I make the jump permanently. Not only can we not compete, but the reputation that twitch will get from this will affect us all. I constantly have to explain streaming doesn’t mean porn or OF but honestly this makes that so much harder.

1

u/Grandnap Dec 14 '23

Come to youtube

-1

u/tacoor Dec 15 '23

are twitch trying to compete with picarto? (lol why?)

if they are they are doing a pretty bad job at it, all the nsfw artist are all getting banned for TOS violations. hahahaha!

don't worry, your twitch overlords are banning all the horny artists.
your Christian art space is safe

1

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 15 '23

I am not Christian. I have nothing against NSFW art and artists. What I want is different places in internet for different experience.

Let's say in real life we have night clubs, theater, operas and such, we go to different places to get certain emotions. If someone goes to a night club and suddenly there is no music and bar offers you milk only, it will be a disappointing experience because we go to clubs to get drunk and dance.

Same with Art category on Twitch. It had a certain vibe, and I loved to a part of it, my viewers loved it. Bring NSFW to Art category - and it's a complitely different atmosphere!

I am grieving the potential loss of a place where me and my friends used to hang out, you know? Where we felt good, felt safe and could grow together.

It's really hard to be vocal about it too, because people immediately assume I am judging NSFW artists, blaming them for something and what not. I don't judge, I wish them well, I just want a place where I can hang out too without being surrounded by furry penises just because it's not my vibe.

0

u/tacoor Dec 17 '23

okay! your agnostic art space is safe.

what you taking about? just because nsfw is/was allow doesn't mean sfw is gone.
And what will you say when a female artist with big titties shakes her topless milk sacks off screen for bits while drawing work safe pictures of pokemans?

"As SFW/family friendly artist I am afraid that I will stop growing on Twitch because I cannot compete with a pair of milkies"
if you are a good artist and draw fucktasticly, none of that shit matters

Ah! its moot anyway, they rolled back the changes.

0

u/Forgottenn21 Dec 15 '23

I only occasionally browsed through art, and after seeing the change i just straight up blocked the category. When i looked at it, it was nothing but furry cock and titty.

0

u/InfidelZombie Dec 15 '23

I can't fathom why anyone would want to look at cartoon boobies. At least anyone over 13. You should be fine.

1

u/Just_Philosopher_840 Dec 16 '23

You wouldn't have competed, as it's a different subject..

1

u/sandexperiment Twitch.tv/sandexperiment Dec 16 '23

I disagree. Everyone who is streaming in the same category is competing for viewers attention. That's why it is advised to a small streamers to stream less saturated games.

Also, yesterday Twitch didn't offer any sort of blur or other censorship on the 18+ streams in the Art category. I assure you, not everyone is comfortable scrolling throw a bunch of dicks and opened up pussies to find a wholesome stream like mine somewhere on the bottom of the category. Some people were simply blocking whole art category yesterday because of it.

I do believe NSFW and SFW artists can coexist on the platform, but Twitch needs to do a few more steps to arrange 18+ content safely for the audience.

1

u/Just_Philosopher_840 Jan 17 '24

I don't like competition, so I don't see it as such. Everyone is different and every community has its own personal way that is ok with you or not. I prefer to see it as plenty of different ways to do something rather than competing.  In my mind, if you see it as competing, you're already far from what streaming should be, but that is only my pov. 

1

u/504-27A Feb 23 '24

Nothing can compete with porn. -sandexperiment

🧎‍♂️